Paint. Everywhere.

When I came to art college in 2011, I was pretty much clueless when it came to using Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign. I learned how to add colour and texture digitally to my drawings. This meant I could easily change colours or composition and add or remove elements from the artwork. I liked it. This is the way I work almost all the time now I'm out there freelancing and whatnot.

However, I've begun to realise something: I miss painting. Recently I've found myself pouring over images by some of my favourite illustrators (including Debi Gliori, Alex T Smith, Quentin Blake, Oliver Jeffers) that are paintings created 100% by hand in the 'real' world. No computer necessary (well, apart from the magical part where they go from artist's studio to the pages of books all over the world...)

So, I decided to step outside my nice neat comfort zone and see if I could paint something. Something that wasn't awful. The jury is out on that one, but it doesn't matter because I had fun.

I started with a pencil sketch for a wee story I've been working on:

Then I took to the lightbox and got my paint on! On everything. Face, hair, floor and a little bit got in my mouth. Painting is messier than I remember.

I took photos as I went! So paint also got on my phone, add that to the list.

Here is the finished article - Harold the tired (but colourful) owl and his noisy neighbours:

Never Bite a Tiger!

This morning I was very excited to hear the post pop through the letterbox (and not just because I was staring blankly at a very confusing and out of date spreadsheet and desperate for a distraction) because today I was expecting something special.

The preview copies of 'Never Bite a Tiger on the Nose', to be precise. This is the picture book I alluded to working on a few months back and I'm very chuffed to have my hands on the final printed and bound book...

A snap of the front covers

The book was written by the brilliant Lynne Rickards and has been published by Scottish Book Trust. The plan is to distribute it for free to children across Scotland in March as part of the BookBug toddler packs. Not only was it a joy to work on this book (I think I could happily draw that monkey all day), but I was honoured to be involved in a project which encourages reading as a family and healthy eating. And also, nothing beats getting a free book! Here are some of the interior pages:

 Oh, and it's also in Gaelic! Which is very cool.

Lines from a Fairytale...

Fairytales are actually really scary. I'm just making sure that you know that I know this. Because when I draw pictures from my favourite fairy tales, you really wouldn't think that I knew most of them involve stealing, abandoning children, kidnapping children, cannibalism and bloody murder. But I'm okay with the decision to focus on the nicer bits. 

Cinderella

My 2013 degree show included patterns and characters inspired by Grimm's fairytales and I've recently returned to this theme. I'm working on a series of line drawings of places, characters and events from some classic fairytales. 

Rapunzel & Sleeping Beauty

The tales I chose were all adapted by Andrew Lang at the turn of the 20th century. I like his versions for a few reasons. I like that he was writing at a very interesting time for fashion, interior design and the decorative arts. I've always loved the patterns of the Arts and Crafts movement and the collection of decorative designs at the V&A, all of which influence the decorative patterns in my line drawings.

I also chose him because he colour coded his books. I like colour coding. And lists.

Chambers Street: Now and Then

Here we go! I've been unearthing some lovely photos of Edinburgh taken over the past two hundred years and reading about the history of these places I walk by every day. Yesterday I made these:

This is an illustration of the National Museum of Scotland, Chambers Street, and below is an illustration of the same spot drawn from a photograph taken in 1908. I found this photo in Batsford's Edinburgh, a beautiful book I stumbled upon in Edinburgh's Central Library.

I'm finding that the buildings, photographs and storied that interest me the most are those that have changed almost entirely from 'then' to 'now'. We are lucky enough in Edinburgh to still have so many historical buildings that have been here for hundreds of years, but it is fascinating to find images of shops and residential buildings that are no longer here. These buildings seem so full of life and stories, I hope I can keep finding images and information about these places and the people that inhabited them. 

So...where to next? I'm open to suggestions!

Announcement!

Since the last post I've been holidaying, but the kind of holiday where you don't really stop working/thinking about work. Mainly because I didn't want to, because I really really wanted to get myself a residency for next year. And some portfolio surgery, an application form and a skype interview later...I am very pleased to say I will be 'Illustrator In Residence' at ECA from Sept 1st. That's right, they ain't getting rid of me yet!

Also - the degree show was FUN. I liked it. I moaned a lot about the work, I lost a lot of sleep and I became a bit obsessed. I'm going to throw this out there: I think it might have totally been worth it. There are a few exciting projects in the pipeline and I have some big plans. In the meantime I would very much like to show everyone some work that is, for once, not mine. These are some of the colouring in sheets left behind at my show - by far my favourite thing to come out of the exhibition and my project. People coloured in! And left me nice notes! Good work everyone, you indulged my desire to get people drawing and my lifelong love of colouring in.

But that's because colouring in is brilliant (and HOW COOL IS THAT DRAGON?)

Sleeping Beauty (or maybe just sleeping...)

ZZZZZZZZZZ

Degree show is almost here! Setting up the space this week. I have been making patterns. It has been fun. Some were hand drawn, some lino printed (I'll post these up in a mo).

SPRING!?

Howdy! Here is a pattern.

Also: 

EDINBURGH. IS. SUNNY.

And in other news, today involved coffee with Jen (always a nice way to start the day), a meeting with the lovely Viv French (always a nice way to start your afternoon), some printing (not always guaranteed nice, but it went my way), teaching myself how to make repeat patterns (see above - and thanks Caroline for yer books). Aaaand spruced up the website:

www.eilidhmuldoodles.com

 Sunshine makes me do stuff.

Printingprintingprinting

The lino printing adventure continues! Learning a lot as I go...mainly to do with how sharp lino tools are. I'm planning to use this as a book jacket for my Fairy Tale Activity Book. Next I plan to use a different colour other than blue, green and bluey-green. Off the chain.

R is for...RAINDROPS!

Working on a series of illustrations beginning with 'R' for my favourite-almost-3-year-old-nephew (I have 3 nephews, so being diplomatic) Ruaridh. Initially intended for colouring in, I had a go at colouring this one myself. Splish splosh. I hung washing out today...oops.

Submission day over! I've just handed in selected work from my first year of MFA Illustration. Among the goodies were this little lot - development work for my story book. I made two little mock-ups for the layouts of the two books I'm working on (I was advised this was a good way to work out how you want a book to look. Not sure the person advising me meant me to take the word 'little' literally, but hey ho).

'The Great Tweet Street Party' book is under way! End of term you say? Try and stop me! This summer I will be mostly drawing birds and cakes and pretty houses.

Today I met the lovely Louise Power from Walker Books. A brilliant opportunity to have an expert look over my work and give me advice. She was very helpful, honest and encouraging. We also talked about bins full of ladybirds... I feel very inspired and full of ideas, hopefully the Picture Hooks conference tomorrow will only add to this! And there's sandwiches provided. WIN.

Louise liked my house illustrations - here are a couple. I'm thinking of a whole street. I'm focussing on developing this decorative style by drawing more houses and objects, but also building up a folio of characters. I'm drawn to geese...watch this space!

Mmmm. Sundaes. Looks like a little bird's been thieving though....

I've been having lots of fun working on layouts for my Tweet Street Party book! It is also quite lovely to have to look through lots of baking and ice-cream books in the name of 'research'. Hmmm, I think it might be time for cake.

Hello! I've been working on creating new characters and images made up of lots of different marks and patterns. This is a wee sample of a recent creation. Does this mean that all my obsessive pattern doodling is (kind of) justified...??

The residents of Tweet Street! These guys are little Chiff-Chaffs. The characters in my new story...

Ah Tetris... so many hours lost to that game on rainy holidays in Wales... And now it has inspired a recent illustration! The brief was to create an A5 illustration for the title 'How To Build a Wall' - and my mind went straight to Tetris (via a brief stop at lego). The image will be featured in a book of DIY tasks to raise money for the Lake Victoria Disability Centre in Tanzania. The book will be on sale in April in various lovely little shops around Edinburgh. More info to follow on this one, but for now I'm off to find my Gameboy. Wow.

Three days to go til hand-in day! And surprisingly, I'm quite sad to be moving on from the Borrowers. It has been a challenge, but this project has been very handy. I've been experimenting with screen-printing and this week felt like a breakthrough, i love it. I've also made my own interpretation of the text, a twist I'm quite happy with. And and and...i have found my love of font! It is fun. So off i go to draw more pretty lettering and get all up in the print studio's face.

p.s. little bird cards were a mini success too...could be possibilities for my summer craft fair/selling mission...?

my doll's house doodles

I've been all about the doll's houses this week. Busy painting my own one with my sister, and doodling many a mini version. I'm working on some illustrations for The Borrowers, but am getting totally obsessed with the one tiny section of the story that involves the doll's house. What is it that makes tiny rooms so appealing?! (Also concentrating this week on putting my developing Photoshop and tablet skills to the test!) 

I'm busy uploading images of houses I have illustrated for people, I was one busy bee before Christmas! Here are the most recent. There's a facebook page explaining what I do and prices etc. I like drawing pretty houses :-)
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.261768843834818.74282.261766417168394&type=1

A little street of wonky houses. This wee doodle came out of a wintery trip to York last month with my Bob. The Shambles was wonky and I liked it.